The Arbor

To gain a better idea of how sound in documentaries work i watched different documentaries to see how sound is used.  the common ones such as planet earth, some Louis Theroux, Michale moore but it also led me to watch some more alternative ones.  The one that sticks out most in my mind is The Arbor.  The Arbor is a film about the life of play writer Andrea Dunbar who died at the age of 29.  I series of interviews  was carried out with her children, parents, partners etc.  Different scenes were filmed with actors and then the interview recordings were dubbed over as used as the audio dialogue.  i thought it was an interesting and different approach to making a documentary. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/8078688/The-Arbor-review.html

Music of the stars?

While browsing the interweb i came across this news article on the bbc website talking about the sound made by the stars.  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7687286.stm i find it quite a remarkable idea as sound cannot travel in a vacuum but they so the scientists look at the oscillations from the light of distant stars and convert that back into a sound that we can recognise.  I find it fascinating that different planetary objects make sounds that differ from one to the other depending on things such as size, age and chemicals.

Planet Earth

The idea to look at sound with in a documentary came from the enjoyment that i have  had from viewing this BBC series.  The  idea came from thinking about how they use music to help tell the stories of the animals which they feature in the show.  I like how they use music to anthropomorphise the animals that feature so that it is easier for the audience to relate to.  At times it feels as though you are watching a film due tot eh tension built up from the music

This video of wild dog hunting an impala is a good example of the story telling that i was referring to

This is Your Brain On Music

I bought this book due to a recommendation during a pitch and crit session.  while there are some interesting thoughts on music and how it has different affects on the human brain and the emotions that we feel.  I didn't get as much out of the book that i had hoped for and i'm thinking that this may be due in some part because of the writing style.  it is caught between textbook and general stories/thoughts, while this made the book quite easy to read through i found that some of the facts have been lost in all the waffle.